Ancient And Modern Philosophy Essay

512 words - 3 pages

Ancient's such as the Egyptians, Persians, and the Mesopotamians lack freedom of thought as the Greeks once did. The world in which we live in has surprising similarities to the way of life brought forth by the Greeks. Characteristics of both the moderns and the ancients are pertinent to our understanding of philosophy and how it has developed throughout history.The ancients can be simply explained by living in a world of fear. Fears of expression of ones own mind; a fear of regressing from the religion of the tyrant; a fear of being "unholy" in the face of their gods. Much of the Egyptian culture centered on an interest in death. The thing that is most ...view middle of the document...

"In Egypt, in Crete, in Mesopotamia, wherever we can read bits of the story, we find the same conditions: a despot enthroned, whose whims and passions are the determining factor in the state; a wretched, subjugated populace; a great priestly organization to which is handed over the domain of the intellect (Hamilton 15).The Greeks, on the other hand, were a society rich in thought and in many other aspects of life. They were the first moderns, believing in a reason for being through a logical worldly sense. Thus is born use of the intellect. A great attempt was made to connect the mind and the spirit to all things of the world. They believe that the world that we live in can only be explained by some coherent relation to something explainable. To the Greeks everything was questionable and all things are to be questioned. When it came to these things there were no limits. Through this freedom of the mind came the idea of law. The Persians believed that the Greeks were enslaved by it, but they were assumingly right in believing that a society without law becomes chaos. Many other things such as science and mathematics were born from the Greek society. The Greeks "love of knowledge," became the dynasty that is, and always will be remembered by all that is to come.In conclusion, these characteristics are essential in our understanding of our own history. There are many differences to be examined, but in the end "... what marked the Greeks off from Egypt and India was not an inferior degree of spirituality, but a superior degree of mentality."

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